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How to make the MacBook Air SuperDrive work with any Mac (El Capitan onwards)

This is an updated version of an earlier post, adapted for Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan and later. It describes how to apply a simple trick to make the MacBook Air SuperDrive work with any Mac. For earlier Mac OSes (and more context),please refer to the original post.

Long time ago, I bought an external Apple USB SuperDrive for my MacBook PRO 17″ late 2010, in which I had replaced the built-in superdrive by a SSD to speed up the machine.

Only to find out, like many other people, that Apple prevents the superdrive to be used with Mac models that originally came with a built-in superdrive. Nowadays, Apple does not sell these models any more, but many of these older Macs are still very good machines, especially when upgraded to SSD like my MBP.

With some investigation and hacking back in 2011, I found out that Apple engineers apparently had the need to test the superdrive with officially not supported Macs themselves, so the driver already has an option built-in to work on any machine.

[Note: there is also a simpler method (and apparently, the only one working for High Sierra), as for example described here, which consists of just typing sudo nvram boot-args=”mbasd=1″ in a terminal – done. I had that method in my post for a long time, but removed it recently because feedback was very mixed. While it seems to work fine in many cases, some users ended up with their Mac not booting any more afterwards. Maybe it was due to other important settings already present in boot-args, so if you want to give it a try, it might be a good idea to do a check first, see last post on this page]

This option can be activated on El Capitan (10.11) and later following the procedure below. Basically, it’s a clean and safe trick that has proven working fine for many users since 2011. But still, you’ll be doing this entirely on your own risk! Using command line in recovery mode and editing system files incorrectly can damage things severely – make sure you have a backup before starting!

Boot your Mac into recovery mode: Select “Restart” from the Apple menu and then hold the left Cmd-key and the “R” key down for a while until the startup progress bar appears. (Thanks to @brewsparks for the idea to use recovery mode!)

After the system has started (might take longer than a normal start), do not choose any of the options offered.

Instead, choose “Terminal” from the “Utilities” menu.

In the text window which opens, type the following (and then the newline key)

ls -la /Volumes

You’ll get output similar to the following, with MyStartDisk being the name of your Mac’s startup disk:

Then, type the following but replace the MyStartDisk part with the actual name of your startup disk as listed by the previous command (you can copy and paste the name to make sure you don’t make a typing mistake, but don’t forget the doublequotes!):

D="/Volumes/MyStartDisk"

type the following command (note that xml1 below is 3 letters x,m,l followed by one digit 1)

Now you are in the “pico” editor. You cannot use the mouse, but the arrow keys to move the cursor.

Insert mbasd=1 in the <string></string> value below the <key>Kernel Flags</key> (If and only if there is already something written between <string> and </string>, then use a space to separate the mbasd=1 from what’s already there. Otherwise, avoid any extra spaces!). The file will then look like:

Restart your machine. That’s it! (When you connect the superdrive now, you will no longer get the “device not supported” notification – because it is now supported)

I tested the above on El Capitan 10.11, but I expect it to work for macOS Sierra 10.12 and beyond. The trick has worked from 10.5.3 onwards for more than 5 years, so except Apple suddenly wants to kill that feature, it will probably stay in future OSes.

Comments (78)

Sorry but it did not work for my mid-2015 MacBook Pro 13 in and Sierra 10.12.6. Guess its off to the Apple Store Repair Center. Thanks to your clear info I can say I tried everything I could do on my own. Note that it took me a while to decipher the first entry because it is not clear if the characters are L, l, I, or i. Had to work out that they are lowercase L (l) and get the spaces right. Thanks heaps!

Michael, it is not very clear from the font used, but note that “xml1” is three letters followed by the number “1”, and not “x” and “m” followed by two letter “l” as it first appeared to me. Also, I don’t believe you can copy and paste in recovery mode, but it will work just to type things in, if you are careful. (Although being able to copy and paste would remove the danger of confusing “xml1” with “xmll.”

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I recently revived my 2012 MacBook Pro with an SSD after its hard drive died, but its CD drive is dead too, so today I got my shiny new Apple Superdrive in the mail, and was very p.o.’d when I realized that it would “not work with this machine.” I knew that this had to be a bogus restriction and should be easily bypassed, so thank you very much for pointing the way. (It should be pointed out that “xml1” is three letters and a number; I thought it was four letters when I read it.)

I tried this fix with a late 2012 mac mini running Sierra 10.12.6 equipped with a OWC MiniStack Max using a LG HLDS GA31N SL 12.7mm DVDRW which had suddenly stopped being recognised. Unfortunately all I kept getting back is “Operation not supported” error. Any ideas about what else I might try? Thank you.

I must be lucky. I plugged in my MacBook Air SuperDrive (MB397G/A, Model A1270) into my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) with macOS Sierra Version 10.12.6 (no internal drive) and it worked with a CD I created in 2003.

Being lucky always helps :-)
But for Macs that never had an internal CD/DVD drive, which means all models of the past few years, the SuperDrive just works. Apple made it exactly for these Macs, starting with the MacBook Air. Only Macs that originally did have a built-in drive refuse to use the external Superdrive and need this trick.

I haven’t updated my MBP17″ 2010, the only computer left where this hack would apply, to High Sierra yet. So I can’t really confirm or deny this.
But – when you say “does not work”, does that mean Hight Sierra prevents you editing the .plist, or did you apply the change and despite this, the Superdrive was not recognized?

Because as long as Apple did not remove the “mbasd” configuration option from the driver, there will be a way to make the hack work again, even if it might need another procedure to edit the .plist now.

I have tested the hack following same approach as in Sierra… and I confirm it does not work on a MBPr 15″, as it states the Superdrive can not work connected through a Hub, instead to plug it directly to the MBP.

Everything seems ok, but it just does not work, that is, I can edit plist file including mbas line through “vi” after disabling SIP, but it looks the system does not consider this parameter anymore.

Thanks for the write-up, it was HIGHLY appreciated. Here is some troubleshooting that may help others:

I believe I got this working on High Sierra GM on a bootable external drive (rejection messages have stopped), on a MBP 17″ mid-2010. Original internal cd drive died, was replaced with ebay “genuine” Apple (lol). Replacement internal cd drive was never removed. Original battery failed, was replaced with ebay “genuine” Apple battery (lol2).

Sierra on internal Hard Drive would boot into recovery, but WOULD NOT load menubar, and I could NOT get into Terminal to try. Some googling said this was a Sierra “bug”, while others claimed this was due to “non-original” battery.

I couldn’t get Sierra backups on external drives to boot into recovery (I had a hunch this may bypass the alleged battery issue).

I went ahead and installed High Sierra on a new external drive partition, and it allowed me into recovery mode, and into Terminal. Bad internal cd, and suspicious battery still installed.

Questions:

1. In your Step 5, if I am booted into an External Drive on recovery Mode, is it possible to select, my INTERNAL drive (not the drive I am currently in) as my startup drive and perform the procedure?

2. In my slightly better that average person understanding, this looks like we are just editing a PLIST on the system in which we wish to enable the Superdrive. Is it possible to simply do this while booted on that system normally, and using a PLIST editor app? 1) save backup of target file 2) copy out file to desktop, 3) edit, 4) drag new file back in to replace current, 5) restart?

Thanks for the detailed description! This would indeed prove that Apple did not remove the “mbasd” option, but only made it more difficult to edit the .plist.

Regarding your questions:
1) I guess yes – I’m not sure if when booted into recovery mode, all available disks are actually mounted, but I would assume so. This means that you should also see your internal drive in result to typing “ls -la /Volumes”. Just use that in step 6.

2) You are perfectly right, it’s just editing a .plist. However, being a system level .plist, it cannot be written to when booted normally. The main reason is SIP (System Integrity Protection) which completely prevents writing to large parts of the system when booted normally, to avoid that malware can modify the system. That’s why this edits need to be made from recovery mode.

I was able to boot into Recovery mode on my High Sierra external drive, and edit the PLIST for my regular internal drive (running Sierra), using your instructions. I am booted back on the regular internal drive now, playing a DVD as I type.

Other notes:
I installed a fresh copy of Sierra on a different external drive, and even the FRESH copy of Sierra refused to allow me into Terminal when booted into Recovery Mode. My guess would be that High Sierra has made some change that is allowing Terminal to run in Recovery Mode, when Sierra was refusing. Again, missing Terminal may be a bug, or in my case, have something to do with my replaced battery.

Edit to my previous post to clarify:
-original internal superdrive failed
-replacement internal superdrive failed, was still installed when I bought new external superdrive accessory, and began trying to enable the external superdrive

When you can play DVDs from the external Superdrive with VLC, then everything’s fine. This hack is only about making the Superdrive to work at all. Making the DVDPlayer app work with external drives is a separate issue.

And – it does not help to leave the Superdrive plugged in. The .plist change gets active at reboot.

Chet Chuck…amazing! super! wow! that one little sentence in the midst of all this other high Greek: “so, still, I use VLC successfully”… and you have solved my issues!!
Since High Sierra I was getting the 70012 error in trying to play anything on my now-external drive and the fix was not as easy as before.
But with VLC I need not worry – I downloaded it and it works 100%! LOVE IT! Thanks

Hi there,
I had this perfectly working under 10.12, I’ve upgraded to 10.13, and as I suspected, I would need to do this again, so I followed the post exactly as I did for 10.12, but I still get the “USB device not supported” message. I’m on an MBP late 2011 running with 2 drives. The file is not getting changed, as the “mbasd=1” line is still present in the file after several reboots. Not really sure what is going on. Cheers.

Editing com.apple.Boot.plist is not possible in OSX 10.11.6 due to changes in System Integrity Protection, SIP. SIP can be disabled. The file can be edited and saved in TextWrangler. Then SIP can be enabled. SIP protects system files from malware. How to do it:
1. Boot in recovery mode. Select language. Press return. From Utilities menu select Terminal.
2. in Terminal: enter csrutil disable
Press return
Enter reboot
Press return
3. After your Mac starts, find Library Preferences SystemConfiguration com.apple.Boot.plist and open it in TextWrangler (a free app. Excellent for editing text files.) Find . There might be text between the two string entries. If empty between string entries, add this: mbasd=1 between the string entries them and save the file. Your edit will look like this: mbasd=1 . In finder, you can see your file and make sure the edit is in the file. If your file already has an entry between the and the , add the mbasd=1 after a space character.
4. Reset the SIP. Repeat steps 1 to 2. This time enter enable after csrutil.
You can check SIP settings by the terminal command csrutil status. The terminal command reboot will, of course, reboot the mac.
Reboot. Check for operation of your external DV. If it has two USB connectors, insert each in a USB receptacle.

Thanks for describing an alternative way to edit the .plist.
However, the original post already takes SIP into account – yes, you cannot edit the .plist while the OS is up, but you can edit it while in recovery mode, the way I describe. Both ways to do the change have their pros and cons – my goal was to describe a way that does not require installing extra software, but works with the macOS on-board tools.

BTW: TextWrangler no longer exists, but you can use BBEdit in free mode instead.

Can somebody in this educated thread explain to me in plain English WHY the f*** apple decided block their own machines from using the APPLE superdrive! I have a MacBookpro from 2010 that has a broken internal optical drive (seems to be a common thing, since I have three of these in my household), so I feel utterly double screwed by apple discovering that for no technical reason they decided to block their own machines from using their own superdrive. If they had equipped the MacBooks in the first place with optical drives that lasted the expected lifetime of the MacBooks this would not be a problem for anyone. I have a suspicion that this is yet another example of apple’s discrete and sublime policy of planned obsolescence and it is dawning to me that apple really does not care much for it’s loyal customers nor the environment of this planet. It will gladly destroy everything you care about as long as you have an iPhoneX and their offshore bank accounts are running over with tax money that should have payed for somebodies healthcare. There. Sorry for the ranting here, this should be posted on the apple forums, but to my experience its usually better to bang my head against the wall than to try to contact apple.

I understand the ranting ;-) But then I think this is once again a case where Hanlon’s Razor – Wikipedia would apply:
No need for sublime planned obsolescence conspiracies where simple negligence will do the trick…

And I can even imagine that the real reason was avoiding support cases – as the superdrive does not work reliably on every USB port, because it needs more power than official USB2 specs allow (500mA), they maybe just didn’t want to mess with that possibility at all.

Despite that, of course, I’m all for demanding sustainable products from Apple! I’m not a fan of the recent product decisions and their apparent problems to manage the complexity of their software without sacrificing stability.

Yes, well you may have a point there. But on numerous points I feel apple have increasingly been letting their customers down when it comes to durability of the devices as a whole. There always seems to be a component that breaks down after a while and often they take special measures to make it more difficult for the owners to fix this them selves. Examples; pentalube screws,”logic” boards, power cables welded into the transformator (I think I have spent almost as much on power units than I originally payed for the machine it self, no exaggeration) and the list just goes on. I love apple products but this part of their business concept pisses me off. Sure, everybody else is doing the same thing; I recall a case with Samsung TVs where it was proven that they had included a small component that they could control the lifespan of, making it malfunction after about 2 years or so. Difficult to repair and many customers simply decide to get a new TV instead of paying for an expensive/impossible repair. I also had a Nikon camera where the motherboard became dysfunctional because of a single component 2 weeks after the guarantee expired. Maybe it’s all simple negligence as you propose but I think you are underestimating the cleverness of the big brands. Not surprisingly smaller and lesser known brands (some at least) tend to make products that lack the element of this planned obsolescence. I’m sure that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK and that Stanley Cubric was in no way involved in the moon landing but of all conspiracy theories this is the one I find the most likely; companies planning for increased profit, employing the smartest brains to engineer subtle ways to make their customers buy more of their products. Apple is very good at making innovative and great products, but they are also good at this part of the game. Add to this the despicable tax avoiding schemes and their overall score becomes no better than anybody elses that make crappy products. Thanks for the read :-) Now I feel much better.

Yes, this is an option – see note in the original post. From feedback I got, this did not work as reliably as the .plist method, so that’s why I don’t recommend it as a first choice. But on the other hand, it is easier to apply than evading SIP for editing the .plist.

Yes, but I did BOTH. First your secure method (modify plist from Recovery). Unfortunately it didn’t work at all and when I plugged the USB SD in my Mac (MBP 17″ mid 2010) a message of “USB Device no compatible” appears.
Then I used the nvram method and it works perfect.
I hope it could help to people with High Sierra issues.
Thanks a lot Luz, and sorry for not explain properly what I did in my older post.

I too now have my Superdrive working again under High Sierra after I did both. I had manually edited the file to make it work under Sierra, but High Sierra broke it again and editing the file did not make it work again. I had exactly the same feelings as Jon above–very ticked off at Apple. But today I executed this command (nvram boot-args=”mbasd=1″) even though my plist file already had this setting turned on, and also at some point reset my PRAM (I can’t remember which I did first, and I’m not sure if only one or both were needed), and now it works. Thank you thank you thank you!

Hi , i have a MBP 2016 (usb c ports) and when I plug the superdrive to the Hub or adapter it tells me to connect it directly to the computer, any solutions to this? Doing all that code stuff is going to help me? or I just have to buy a new one with the usb c port?

No, the MBP 2016 does not need any hacks to use the superdrive. The tricks described in this post don’t apply to macs that were sold without a built-in optical drive (i.e. pretty every model after 2012).

But the superdrive needs more power than a regular USB port can supply. So it depends on the hub or adapter, whether its ports can supply extra power beyond what the USB specification demands. Apple’s laptops all have such extra power ports, but only some USB hubs and adapters have them. Apple’s simple USB-C to USB-A adapter works well to connect the Superdrive directly to my MBP 2016, but also cheap Chinese (DodoCool) adapters work fine for me.

OK, so this drove me out of my mind with an early-2001 MBP 13″ for which the internal drive was no longer working. I added the mbasd=1 string using the method suggested by Jim Stiles (Nov 4 2017) above, but still it would not work. I was about to try the ‘nvram boot-args=”mbasd=1″’ command, when I saw ‘Update to latest OS’ in the instructions for the Superdrive. Since I was still one minor High-Sierra update behind I figured: what if I upgrade with the drive on the USB port, perhaps it will see it etc. Lo and behold: it worked. Perhaps just coincidence but thought I’d report it here.

I’m a baby boomer so please help me out. I’ve tried all the above suggestions without success. Question for you who might know. In the directions above, am I supposed to hit “Enter” after every step, after some steps, or after the end step? I’ve never done this before.

As I commented earlier, this solution saved me a while back, but it seems that Apple sabotaged my 2012 Macbook Pro at a deeper level with the Mojave update. If anyone has suggestions for Mojave beyond what was originally suggested, I would be very grateful!